See what people are saying about who wants to be rich.
The question was, do you want to be rich.
To help clarify this question let us see what most people really want and why.
Sometimes, teaching people how to get rich gets a bad rap. “You just want to make money,” I’ve been told. Or “money isn’t everything.” These answers though useful in themselves, do have a point. Actually, I’d prefer that these people ask me why I teach people to be wealthy. It’s important to ask yourself, too: Why do you want to be rich?
Think about this for a moment.
Do you want to have a luxurious lifestyle? Do you want to travel? To eat at nice restaurants? Maybe you want to start your own business. Most of us think about these things the question is, and you got to ask yourself…why you want to be rich, the reasoning is everything or you can get lost in the rat race of just getting there. Your purpose is the goal of getting rich, not the dollar value.
Consider this when you consider the reason you would like to be rich, you may realize it is more pressing than you ever imagined.
What are those problems? The following are 52 disturbing facts about the U.S. economy that should cause you to make economics a major issue at your house: The middle class economic condition continues to deteriorate, and regardless of where you are financially, these statistics may include you.
That deterioration should strike you as being something that extends beyond bad news and drama. It should be a conversation starter for you, your spouse and kids, your extended family and your employees. Here is the reality of your situation:
- 78 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck as of 2019, since covid it’s even worse.
- 70 percent of Americans have less than 1,000 dollars in their savings account as of 2019 and again the number is even higher now.
- 22 percent of Americans have less than $5,000 in retirement
- 33 percent of all Americans have no savings account at all as of 2020
- 50 percent of American households spend more money than they make each month
- Middle-class Americans today make up a minority of the population. In 1971, 61 percent of all Americans lived in middle-class households
- About half of U.S. adults (52%) lived in middle–income 1 households in 2018, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. Roughly three-in-ten (29%) were in lower-income households and 19% were in upper-income households. Jul 23, 2020
- The median wealth for middle-class households dropped by an astounding 28 percent between 2001 and 2013
- Middle-class take-home pay before expenses has plummeted to just 43 percent of gross pay, compared to 1970 when the middle class took home approximately 62 percent of all income
- There are still 900,000 fewer middle-class jobs in America than there were when the last recession began
- According to the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year
- 48 percent of all adults under the age of 30 believe that “The American Dream is dead”
- Since hitting a peak in 2004, the rate of homeownership in the United States has been steadily declining, and today stands at 63 percent of households
- The United States ranks 19th in the world when it comes to median wealth per adult
- The level of entrepreneurship in this country is at an all-time low
- For each of the past six years, more businesses have closed in the United States than opened. This has never happened before in U.S. history
- The 20 wealthiest people in the nation have more money than the poorest 152,000,000 Americans combined
- The top 0.1 percent of all American families have as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent combined
- If you have no debt and $10 in your pocket, you have a greater net worth than one out of four Americans
- The number of Americans living in concentrated areas of high poverty has doubled since 2000
- 48 percent of all 25-year-old Americans still live at home with their parents
- 51 percent of all Americans make less than $30,000 a year
- One out of five people live in poverty
- 46 million Americans use food banks each year
- The number of homeless children nationally has increased by 60 percent over the past six years
- According to Poverty USA, 1.6 million American children slept in a homeless shelter or some other form of emergency housing last year
- 65 percent of all children in the United States are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government
- Almost one-third of all children live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income
- The United States ranks 36th out of the 41 “wealthy nations” in child poverty
- 41 percent of all children in the United States raised by a single parent are living in poverty
- The “officially unemployed” plus those “not in the labor force” equal 102.3 million
- 70 percent of all Americans believe that “debt is a necessity in their lives”
- 53 percent of all Americans don’t even have a minimum three-day supply of nonperishable food and water stored
- According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, the actual unemployment rate in this nation is 22.9 percent
- The percentage of men working in America has gone from more than 80 percent in 1980 to 65 percent
- The labor-force participation rate for men has plunged to the lowest level ever recorded
- The inventory-to-sales ratio has risen to its highest level since the last recession. That means that a lot of unsold inventory is just sitting around out there
- The manufacturing index has fallen for five months in a row.
- Orders for “core” durable goods have fallen for ten months in a row
- Since March 2015, the amount of goods being shipped by truck, rail, and air inside the United States has been falling every single month on a year-over-year basis
- Walmart is projecting that its earnings may fall by as much as 12 percent over the next fiscal year
- Corporate debt in the United States has approximately doubled
- Despite the Federal Reserve’s first increase in interest rates in 10 years, the U.S. Treasury prime rate has continued to drop, hitting new lows of 1.57 percent just this week
- Annual health-insurance premiums have increased by a total of $4,865 per household since 2008
- The average U.S. household that has at least one credit card has approximately $15,950 in credit card debt
- The number of auto loans that exceed 72 months has hit an all-time high
- Approximately 41 percent of all working-age Americans either currently have medical bill problems or are paying off medical debt
- The total amount of student loan debt in the United States has risen to $1.2 trillion, more than all credit card debt
- Approximately 40 million Americans are paying off student loan debt
- AS of 2020, the US national debt is $27.2 trillion with admitted debt at some $136 trillion, each taxpayer owes $883,000 …
- By June 2020, as many as 7.7 million workers had lost jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many will not get them back.
- Nearly 7.5 million small businesses are at risk of closing their doors permanently over the next several months if the coronavirus pandemic persists, according to a survey.
Around two-thirds of entrepreneurs said they may have to shut forever if the business disruption continues at its current rate for up to five months, according to a survey published Tuesday by Main Street America, a network of more than 1,600 commercial districts comprising 300,000 small businesses.
I’m sure that’s enough information to see we need to make some changes in the way we perceive wealth.